Seasons
by PerfectNezumi
Summary: Sousei's interactions with Tenka through the seasons.


**Spring.**

It was the first time he could remember being outside in all his thirteen years. They'd kept him indoors, whispering behind long, manicured fingers and in shadows about _monsters_ and _how scary, such an innocent looking child could be something so dangerous._ The whispers faded away whenever he caught their gazes, people whose faces he didn't recognise scattering like the wind. His tutors seemed to change yearly and were kind but distant, possessing worried eyes and slightly too fast gaits.

When Kumou Taiko arrived to pick him up he didn't think anything of it. To be moved somewhere else was new, but he never had any say in the matter so he didn't see any point in a reaction. This was just another man with a falsely warm smile, and he would be gone within a year.

"Wait here," he said.

Abeno Sousei looked up at spreading branches of the tree above him, tipped with the pristine green of new season's leaves and the delicate tongues of purple buds unfolding. The sky beyond was cloudy. It was always cloudy. He'd heard whispers that it had been cloudy since around the time he'd been born, as if it were somehow his fault the weather was horrible. They told him who he was was not important. He was just a vessel, a pawn in a larger plan.

A shadow loomed over him, a kid his own age with hands on hips, wild dark hair and an unimpressed frown. "You don't look like a masterful exorcist. Ouch!"

The kid clapped both hands over his head and ducked down, wincing in pain. "What was that for, Dad?"

Taiko stood behind him, tapping a fan into his left palm and grinning menacingly. "Play nice, Tenka."

"I am nice! And fearsome." Tenka puffed out his chest. Sousei thought he looked like a rooster, with his red-tipped hair protruding feather-like at odd angles from his head. "You're the one who's not nice, hitting people from behind."

Taiko laughed, and ruffled his son's hair. "Sousei-kun is joining the Yamainu with you. Make him feel welcome."

A small child peeked out from behind Taiko's legs. A baby touched his leg with a soft, chubby hand and reached to grab at the ties swinging from his shirt. Tenka grinned at him, and stuck out his tongue.

...

The training was just more of what he was used to and he fell into its pattern easily. Dealing with so many people who wanted to not only be in his personal space but also actually interact with him was not so easy.

"We're not just pawns of the Orochi," Tenka would scoff for anyone to hear. "We're in charge of the difference we make in the world, and we can choose to be kings instead!"

"Kings on a chessboard are useless," Kiiko pointed out. "You'd be better off aiming to be a queen."

Tenka stared at her, the burning passion in his eyes replaced by confusion. "What's chess got to do with anything?"

Kiiko sighed, and Ashiya chuckled. Taiko whacked his son on the head again. Sousei wondered if he had any brain cells left.

Taiko cleared his throat. "That's enough idle chatter. I need you lot to work hard to become the best damn fighters you can be, understand?"

...

Sousei breathed hard, pulling as much oxygen into his body as he could. It had been difficult, but he'd finally won a match against Tenka who, for all his carefree exuberance, was actually a tough competitor. Taiko, who seemed to take great pleasure in seeing his son defeated, clapped delightedly.

Tenka eased himself off the ground, gave a wicked smile, and flung himself at Sousei. Sousei panicked, but had no time to escape as Tenka's arms wrapped around his neck, sending him sprawling backwards. "You did well!" Tenka cried, smile bright as the sun.

Sousei's face flamed red.

 **Summer.**

The air clung to him like a second skin, sucking the moisture out of him in sticky, warm teardrops of sweat. The windows in the training room were open, but the non-existent breeze offered no reprieve from the summer's heat. The silence in the usually bubbling room was a heavy blanket laid upon him, suffocating, which he obstinately ignored with the soothing repetition of counting training cycles.

 _Taiko is just one person,_ Sousei thought between press-ups. _Each of us can make a difference if only we try. We cannot let this affect us. I cannot let this affect_ me.

The others couldn't understand why he came back here, why he was so desperate to continue as if nothing had changed; he didn't expect them to. In time they would return, and things would carry on because that's the way the world worked. You had to move forward, no matter what. Isn't that what Tenka had always been spouting? _Be the change you want to see in the world._

They would press forward together, an undivided unit of power.

...

"I'm going to be the best big brother."

At first he thought he'd heard wrong, that the cicadas loudly buzzing their sexual frustration in uneven waves of heat were stopping his ears from working.

"I'm all they have left. I'm resigning from the Yamainu."

The ringing sound of his palm striking Tenka's face filled his ears, surreal, his stinging skin a distant insignificant pain. He didn't remember even having raised his hand.

"They need me."

Tenka's head was bowed, his hair obscuring his face, palms flat on the floor. He didn't try to defend himself, he just said what he wanted calmly and with absolute certainty. Sousei bit his lip so hard it bled and resisted the urge to kick his front teeth in.

He turned away, the ice in his chest a tightly clamped contrast to the tingling heat on his skin. "Never show you face to me again." Bile rose in his throat. "You disappoint me."

 **Autumn.**

Tenka returned to his life a decade later, as bright and brash as the leaves that fell around him.

"It's been a lo~ong time, Sousei-kun! You're turning our beloved reunion into a farce. How cold."

The idiot was hiding behind his fan and his blustery words, but that didn't make them sting any less. Sousei swallowed around the lump in his throat. "I have no desire to be friendly with a traitor."

Tenka pouted, then gave a smile that suggested he knew exactly what Sousei was thinking. "You missed me."

Sousei turned away. "I have no time to waste on someone like you."

He could avert his eyes, but he couldn't shut out the hushed "Ten-nii, who's that? Do you know him? He took out that guy with one strike," and fought to erase the image of the feeble little brothers tugging on Tenka's yukata burned onto his retinas.

He wished he hadn't heard the carefree laugh, genuine and lighter than air. "He was my friend, a long time ago."

 _Was._ Not that it mattered now.

...

The second son burst through his door with the wild, determined eyes and complete lack of forethought indicative of the Kumo. Sousei eyed him with disdain. _This_ was what Tenka had left the Yamainu for?

"What can you offer me in return for training you?"

The boy had helpless, startled eyes. "Uh, chores or… I can cook."

"I thought as much." The kid was painfully similar to Tenka. Sousei pointed to the door. "I am not running a charity. Come back when you have something of worth for me."

"But aren't you friends with Aniki?"

The unabashed pleading made him nauseous. He hauled the kid up by the back of his shirt and tossed him into the hallway. "I have no friendship with traitors."

He slammed the door and leaned his forehead against it, eyes shut tight. After exactly twenty seconds of controlled breathing he went back to work.

...

Objectively, he'd always known Tenka could have been the Orochi's vessel. It could have been any of them. But it still felled him like a sledgehammer to the knees. They hadn't really spoken in years, of course, but Tenka out there somewhere ignoring him was very different than Tenka confirmed _dead._

"How long have you known?" he asked, curt like the leader he was supposed to be.

Tenka shrugged and gave a silly smile.

"I always knew you were foolish. But this…" Sousei didn't even know what he was trying to say. The beginnings of a headache pulsed behind his temples. His vision was blurring. "Your selfishness knows no bounds."

Tenka's expression was unreadable, but he gripped the bars of his cell tightly. "You took Soramaru on as your disciple, right?"

Sousei snorted a laugh. "Are you going to beg me to look after him? You're joking. It's not like you've ever cared about the people you left behind."

"Sousei," Tenka said, but he no longer had the energy to listen.

Tenka was condemned to die, and there was nothing either of them could do about it. Sousei told himself he didn't care.

 **Winter.**

The sky was cloudy once more, but now there was no Orochi to blame. These clouds were dark and puffy and full of snow, the beginnings of which drifted down in lazy spirals, settling its first wet blanket over the ground.

Sousei was pacing furrows into the carpet of his room. He'd received a message from Kiiko, and it simply said, _He knows._

Which meant that sooner or later (probably sooner rather than later, given the Kumou's single-mindedness) Tenka would end up on his doorstep all accusatory, and he had no idea how to react to that. Pretend he didn't care, he supposed.

But he'd tried that, over and over, and his mask was beginning to crack. Of course he'd been relieved when he'd found out Tenka wasn't dead – but with the relief came a whole host of other feelings that he didn't particularly want to name. Tenka had lied to him, about his body and his reason for leaving the Yamainu, and this knowledge was forcing him to reconsider his past actions.

He heard the sound of wheels seconds before his door came flying open and, with it, an airborne wheelchair carrying the one person he wanted to avoid for the rest of his life.

"Abeno Sousei, my friend!" Tenka cried, his eyes roving the room. "It seems you truly are an Abe now."

Sousei stared at him, gaze unwavering. With the threat of him being the Orochi vessel gone his parents had welcomed him back with open arms. _We love you, we miss you, we never wanted to give you up Sweetie._ He didn't know these people and their words and gestures were empty, but he'd allowed them to lead him back into their home, if only because the Yamainu had been all but disbanded and he had nowhere else to go. "Soramaru is upset you haven't been writing. But I suppose it's too much to ask of you who forgets those left behind."

"Ehehe." Tenka grinned sheepishly, and made a loopy writing gesture in the air. "I'm not so good with a pen now, with only one hand."

"Your left side is paralysed. Your writing hand should be unaffected."

Tenka shrugged, an awkward, lopsided movement. He wheeled himself until his feet hung over Sousei's toes and looked up at him, all mirth gone from his face. "Why are you doing this?"

Sousei held his gaze. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You do." Tenka tipped his head back in his chair, obscuring most of his face. "Why are you supporting the Orochi experiments?"

The position threw the dark, puckered skin that stained the left side of his face and trailed down his neck into sharp relief. Sousei resisted the senseless urge to touch his own face to check if his matching scar was still there. His lungs didn't seem to be working properly. "You are a traitor of the Yamainu. It is none of your business."

Tenka's head snapped forward, his joyful persona back in full force, and jabbed him playfully in the ribs. "C'mon, Sousei, we're good pals, aren't we?" His voice had a thread of steel twisted through it.

Sousei recoiled from his touch. "We are not. I'd like you to leave."

"How can you lie after all we've been through?" Tenka asked, eyes dark and sincere. "Is it that you don't have any sense of purpose now that the Orochi is gone so you feel the need to create something that only you can control? I don't want to believe you're that self-centred."

He turned his wheelchair toward the door.

"Do you really want to know?"

The words were out before Sousei had even realised he'd said them, but now he had he couldn't stop. He spun the idiot Kumo's chair back around and jabbed him in the chest.

"It's all because of you, Tenka. _Everything_ is because of you."

Tenka's eyes narrowed. "Don't blame me for your shitty life choices. I don't condone torturing people in the name of science."

"I am not blaming you. I made my own decisions and I live with them guilt-free."

"Help me understand, then, because I'm an idiot. Why are you going against everything you stand for?"

"What do you know of what I stand for?" He should stop now. He should have kicked his old teammate out the moment he'd rolled through the door. He should have kept his anger in check. Should have, could have, would have. "Those people do not matter. They're criminals."

"Try again," Tenka said. "What is your reason for doing this?"

"Because their lives are not nearly as important as yours is," Sousei snapped. He took a step back, desperate to calm the shaking in his hands. "You should go now."

Tenka frowned. "You're doing this _for_ me? There's no reason for you to have blood on your hands on my behalf. I'm happy the way I am."

"You're not happy. You take on everything by yourself without telling anyone and pretend you're fine with everything when you're clearly not. You're not supposed to be in a wheelchair. You're supposed to be an undefeated force to be reckoned with. It's not right."

Tenka curled his fingers into the front of his uniform and yanked him forward into a one-armed hug. "It's nice to see how much you care about me," he said, the warmth of his body belied by the metal in his voice, "but Sousei, if you keep supporting the torture of strangers just so I can maybe walk again I'm going to have to do something about it."

 **Spring**

Sousei leaned against the trunk of the tree, watching the gently curling purple buds on the ends on the branches appear and disappear again as the tree moved in the breeze.

"Help me," Tenka demanded, shoving a chain of small white flowers in his face.

Sousei looked down. Tenka lay with his head in his lap, hair flowing in wild tangles over his thighs. He still wasn't quite sure how it had come to this. Tenka was obstinate about keeping tabs on him, and had not left his sight since the time he'd burst into his room unannounced. Sometimes he'd wake up at night to see a dark shadow in the corner of his room, Tenka dozing in his wheelchair with one hand blocking the door. He'd seen Kiiko once, but she'd just laughed and said, "This is my gift to you," before disappearing into the ether.

He pierced the stem of the flower at the end of the chain with his nail and held it still so Tenka could thread another daisy through the hole one-handed. "What is this for?"

"Does it need to have a purpose?" Tenka asked.

"Yes," Sousei said. "Everything must have a purpose."

Tenka struggled to sit up. He seemed to have some use of his left side, but it was physically painful to watch someone who had once been so lithe and powerful have difficulty with such a simple task.

"Beautification," he said, grinning, and draped the chain of flowers over Sousei's hair.

Sousei stopped breathing. Tenka's face was inches from his.

Tenka blinked. "Your face is turning pink."

Sousei turned his head. "Please move."

"Why?"

He seemed genuinely curious. Sousei wanted to smash his face into the tree trunk for being so dense. "Or else I'll kiss you."

Tenka laughed, innocent and unaware, his face so close that his breath huffed against Sousei's neck. "What if I like it?"

Sousei grit his teeth and… kissed him. It was only a slight brushing of lips, but it was enough to send his pulse sky high. He pushed Tenka back as hard as he dared, given that the idiot couldn't really defend himself. "Move, now."

Tenka frowned. "If you're going to play gay chicken with me, at least put a little effort into it, you know?"

"You think this is a game?" Sousei scowled at him. "I just want you to get off me and stop following me around."

"You're being weird, Sousei."

" _You're_ being weird," Sousei said. "No one asked you to seduce me."

Tenka looked surprised, then grinned and waved his fan in front of his face. "Ohoho, you find me seductive?"

"Don't flatter yourself."

"I am the sexy 14th Master of the Kumou after all," Tenka mused, still flapping his fan around. "It wouldn't be that surprising for a mere mortal such as you to fall for me. Hmm, Abeno Sousei?" He flipped the fan closed and used it to tilt Sousei's face upwards.

Sousei glared daggers at him, face hot enough to fry a steak. "So what?"

"So what what?"

He could see the gears in Tenka's head turning, and in no way did he want to be in the vicinity when the idiotic genius finally figured it out. He disentangled himself as gently as he could and stood to leave.

Tenka grabbed his foot. "Do you like me?"

His heated face was mostly under control, but his heartbeat was another story. "Would it make any difference if you knew?"

Sousei tugged his foot out of Tenka's death grip and turned away. He didn't really want to hear the answer.

"Of course you do, I'm amazing," Tenka replied to his own question, and Sousei wasn't sure if he was joking or just seriously deluded. In any case, the best answer to this scenario was to walk away and keep walking forever until he died of shame.

"Hey! Are you leaving me here? I can't get up by myself!" Tenka yelled. "And you owe me a real kiss, asshole. Don't just walk away."

Sousei shook his head and kept walking, flowers in his hair and a nervous tic in his heart. He'd find Soramaru later and tell him to pick up his brother, when he'd calmed down a bit and put enough distance between them.

"Oi!" Tenka's fan came sailing past his shoulder. "You're pretty attractive yourself, you know. Not as much as me, but still."

Sousei picked up the fan and slipped it into his pocket. "You can have it back when you figure out how to get off the ground and catch me," he called.

He turned to face the sun again and allowed himself a small smile. Maybe it was fine to move forward at Tenka's pace.


End file.
